I did not own a PlayStation when it was the state-of-the-art in console gaming. I had some second-hand exposure through friends' houses and store displays, but our family could not afford one, so I didn't pay much attention at the time. Recently, however, I have had the opportunity to repair several original PlayStations. To play-test them, I've been using the release title Ridge Racer.
In retrospect, Ridge Racer is an interesting specimen that highlights the state of the video game world as it existed in the mid-1990s compared to the present day-- the mid 2020s. It is an arcade port, and while it exercises the bleeding-edge graphics of the PlayStation at the time, its gameplay heavily reflects the arcade whence it came.
Arcades in the mid-1990s seemed a lot more relevant than today. The fancy hardware needed to produce real-time fancy 3D graphics and CD-quality sound were only just becoming affordable enough to find their way to the home console market, and society was not quite as atomized as it's become in the post-Internet era. A big community place with expensive fancy video game machines still made sense, and for many it would offer a positive experience that home console companies would still seek to emulate.
One of these companies was Sony, with their PlayStation hardware. For the launch of their new PlayStation, they enlisted the help of a veteran of the arcade scene: Namco. Namco provided a very faithful port of their popular arcade title, Ridge Racer.
Aside from its use of cutting-edge 3D hardware, however, an artifact of the arcades that Ridge Racer carried with it was its short and overly-simple gameplay loop. There was one track (with options to make it a bit longer), a few vehicles, and that was it. A high score board featured prominently. I mean to emphasize that this was very much an arcade game in the home.
When viewed in these terms, it is reminiscent of titles like Galaga or Defender. Very simple gameplay loops, not so much content that you couldn't experience everything there was to it with more than a stack of quarters and an afternoon. You could practice the limited options it offered, and leave your mark on the score board.
I feel this contrast between the fancy 3D graphics and the extremely simple gameplay loop is striking. It is uncommon for modern home games to center on these arcade-centric patterns. Perhaps this seems obvious, but I still think it's worth noting that Ridge Racer seems to be among the last of a dying breed. There would be more-- at least into the early 2000s, and especially in the racing genre. But Ridge Racer just feels like such a "pure" example in the image of the golden age of the arcade.